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This was the Sixth site of our Welsh adventure. To go back to the beginning, click here.
History
The estate of Pool Park (spelled Parc in Welsh) began as a deer park for the nearby Ruthin Castle. Following its time as a hunting ground, the property was passed between a series of wealthy landowners. The elegant mock-Tudor style manor house that still stands today was constructed in 1862 for the second Lord Bagot.
In 1937, the house was sold to the North Wales Counties Mental Hospital, which was in need of a second location to house overflow patients from the nearby Denbigh Insane Asylum*(the super haunted one with all the cages and lobotomies). Pool Park held 87 patients at capacity, but in times of need had as many as 120. For a brief stint of time during World War II, the grounds also held a prisoner of war camp.
Explore
Having read previous stories of the land owners displeasure at unexpected visitors, we knew we had to exercise some care in our approach of this one. We parked up at the nearby nature reserve and followed the nature trail up to the private road, where we came across the land owner with his kids riding a quadbike. Realising we were headed straight for his front door, we changed tack and crept back into the woods looking for a spot to cross the stream. Once found, it was fairly straight forward to access the building. No less than 2 minutes after entering, we heard the quad pull up outside and stop. We could hear muffled voices but couldn’t really make anything out, so we stood still and as quietly as possible with just the sound of my shutter clacking every 90s or so. After 10 minutes, we were confident he had gone, so pushed on looking for that infamous staircase, and what a staircase it is!
Here are the pictures:
After spending 20 minutes trying to get the perfect shot of the stairs (and to my horror, failing miserably!) we were off again, creeping back out the way we came and off to the Duke of Lancaster
History
The estate of Pool Park (spelled Parc in Welsh) began as a deer park for the nearby Ruthin Castle. Following its time as a hunting ground, the property was passed between a series of wealthy landowners. The elegant mock-Tudor style manor house that still stands today was constructed in 1862 for the second Lord Bagot.
In 1937, the house was sold to the North Wales Counties Mental Hospital, which was in need of a second location to house overflow patients from the nearby Denbigh Insane Asylum*(the super haunted one with all the cages and lobotomies). Pool Park held 87 patients at capacity, but in times of need had as many as 120. For a brief stint of time during World War II, the grounds also held a prisoner of war camp.
Explore
Having read previous stories of the land owners displeasure at unexpected visitors, we knew we had to exercise some care in our approach of this one. We parked up at the nearby nature reserve and followed the nature trail up to the private road, where we came across the land owner with his kids riding a quadbike. Realising we were headed straight for his front door, we changed tack and crept back into the woods looking for a spot to cross the stream. Once found, it was fairly straight forward to access the building. No less than 2 minutes after entering, we heard the quad pull up outside and stop. We could hear muffled voices but couldn’t really make anything out, so we stood still and as quietly as possible with just the sound of my shutter clacking every 90s or so. After 10 minutes, we were confident he had gone, so pushed on looking for that infamous staircase, and what a staircase it is!
Here are the pictures:
After spending 20 minutes trying to get the perfect shot of the stairs (and to my horror, failing miserably!) we were off again, creeping back out the way we came and off to the Duke of Lancaster
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